ABSTRACT
African Americans and Latinos have come a long way, considering their respective histories of slavery and colonial domination and their ensuing marginalization in the United States. Still, as groups, they are at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale. After limited gains in the post war period, the gap between them and Whites is, again, increasing (Bean and Tienda 1987; Farley and Allen 1989; Jaynes and Williams 1989 ; Goldsmith and Blakely 1992; Cotton 1992; Morales and Bonilla 1993; Dawson 1994). Changes in the political economy (also referred to as globalization or restructuring), mediated by racism, chiefly are responsible for this retrogression. The ongoing challenge is to recast the movement against racism and to engage in new efforts for advancement.
